BMShowcase

[Garamonde]

What I'm also noticing is a lack of contrast and hue-shift, banding, and unnatural shading. If you are unfamilar with these terms, please have have a look at our spriting dictionary.

First off, let's talk about contrast.



Upon closer inspection, I can see that you didn't use all of colors you have there, which is good. So let's remove them from the palette so that we don't get confused.

Let's also change the background color to something more neutral (and not used in the sprite's palette), so that the bright white doesn't mess with our visual perception of the sprite.



Much better! However, there are some colors that still don't need to be there. Why? Because when used properly, fewer shades can convey the same depth as more colors -- and in a cleaner, easier to manage way. Take these spots for example:





The colors there might look good there when you're working on it and looking at it up close, but when you zoom out, they don't do anything for the sprite. They only end up adding extra unneeded fluff to the palette. Some other colors could do to be more noticeable, as well.



It looks a bit better, but the colors still aren't very appealing. This is where hue-shifting comes in. Shadows cast by and onto objects in real life aren't just darker shades of the base color. They are tints of blue, brown, red... they can be nearly any color, really. It all depends on the colors of the light that falls onto them as well as the light reflected off of surrounding objects.

Take this strawberry for example:

See how it's not just one flat array of reds? It's got shades of pink and even a hint of orange on the front and tip. When you use hue-shifting, you're conveying a more natural and dynamic feeling to the piece. For example, what colors would the shading on this mushroom have? Since it's red like the strawberry, we can take some inspiration from that:



That's better. However, the shading still isn't very effective. This is where banding and shading comes in.

Banding is when multiple layers of shading follow the outline of an area, instead of showing the volume of the object. When this happens, it makes the outlines look blurred and it can even make jagged outlines stand out more (and thus, more distracting/jarring to the eyes). Take for example the white spots (outlined in blue) and the face (outlined in pink):



Now, with all of that fixed, we have the end result!



In my edit, I fixed everything mentioned plus a few personal touches I made that I felt made the mushroom look better. Keep in mind that I'm no professional, but I hope this helps and I apologize for my post being so big and clunky.